No place is safe from the virus. The infected are a threat, but the sickness is even worse. It can find any way it can to get to us, to kill us off, one by one. The world that we lived on for so long is trying to kill us off, and there’s no way to stop it.
Likewise, there’s no place to hide your secrets. There’s no privacy in Armageddon. People still act the same way that they used to; they still hate you if you’re different. It’s amazing that no one has found out the main things about me that I’ve been hiding for so long.
My name is Hayden Mackey and I’m a lesbian. And so far, I’m a survivor of the zombie apocalypse.
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Chapters:

I was far too eager to return home. On a normal day I would have
dreaded it. But then again, I wasn't used to blowing up an entire
village. I hoped that I never would be, either.

Jackson went around telling everyone far fetched stories about
how he single handedly saved the chopper from crashing, and that
I had fainted from all of the gore. People who knew me knew that
wasn't true, but there were still enough people willing to listen
to him that he was able to tell them for a while.

The longer I was around him, though, the more I wondered what I
had ever seen in him. I couldn't recall the slightest good thing
about him, other that the fact that he wasn't one of the undead
like the majority of the world now. When I tried to think about
how we had even met, there were no good memories. Hell, I
couldn't even say that our engagement had been pleasant.

In fact, the ring I was wearing now had come off the hand of some
poor rich woman who couldn't pay her way to safety. Money didn't
stop the undead from getting her, too. I glared at the ring with
disgust. If it weren't for appearance, I would have thrown it at
him long ago and told him never to come near me again.

Sometimes I wish it were that easy.

If I were to do that, there's a chance that I would be exiled. He
could easily say that I would pose a threat to the Alley People's
safety, and even if that wasn't true, they would have no choice
but to ban me. Jackson's influence over this place is way too
strong for someone to get on his bad side, even when their father
is an elder, like me. And in a way, it makes sense. The Elders
can only be around for so long. The ones who really have power
are the ones who protect us, the ones who find food and other
survivors.

However, I think that they might not be able to risk kicking me
out. There are so few eligible women for "breeding", as it is
called now, that I come across as a rarity. In the Alley, so many
women have become infertile due to poor nutrition and harsh
sickness. I'm one of the only ones who can still have children,
even though I don't really want to. But when the human race is
hanging on by a thread, you kind of have to take one for the
team.

It's because of this that I'm no longer on the outside
exploration team. The Elders only allowed me to go with Jackson
as one final mission, per se, although I know the real reason.
They wanted to scare me out of wanting to fight out there. They
knew that I didn't agree with killing innocent people when they
weren't infected. So they wanted to show me that I would be doing
exactly what I hate if j had stayed working. In the end, they got
exactly what they wanted.

I sigh adn look out the window. Even though they've known for a
whiel now that I wasn't going to out on the Mission Squad
anymore, they hadn't given me a new task here yet. I've been in
some sort of limbo state, and I'm pretty sure that I know why.
They're just waiting for me to get knocked up so they don't have
to worry about me working. From the time I announce pregnancy,
they won't have to worry about me working ever again. Then I'll
just be around to pop out babies for everyone to nurture. After
all, they would be the fate of humanity.

There's not much to look at. I wished silently in my head that I
had taken advantage of the trip a few weeks ago. Even though it
was gruesome and not at all what I had wanted, it was the last
time that I would have really been able to see outside. Maybe
even the last time in my life.

See, the way the Alley worked was like this: if you were a
survivor and were deemed acceptable, they would give you housing
and food within the confines of the property. To pay for your
stay and protection, you had to work. There were tons of jobs
around, and it was rare that there was a job that didn't need to
be filled.

We had designated Mission Force people, who would search for
survivors and decimate areas that were the most heavily infected,
in order to try to prevent any more spreading of the virus. There
were Nutrition and Wellness people, who tried to find medicine
that could be salvaged, and if not that, then herbs and chemicals
that could create home-made fixes.

There were the cooks, and that job was obviously pretty self
explanatory. They were the ones to determine what would be the
best meal to serve and when,. also who would get how much of what
based on their BMI and what they did to contribute. They had
always been pretty resourceful when it came to working with what
we had, and it was rare for them to ever serve a skimpy meal.

There were some people who tried to find some ways to cultivate
the land we had, and would try to work with whatever kinds of
seeds they could find. When the viruses became exposed to the
world, they had mutated into ways that effected anything that
lived; global warming also hadn't helped anything, and most of
the plants and animals had died off. But people who knew ways to
make things grow in this barren land were almost as scarce as
finding living trees. None of us here really knew what to do, but
we tried our best to make it by.

Some people made clothes, others worked with metal and built
moire safety structures to guard our area. We'd never had a
breach in security yet, but then again, the Alley had only been
up and running for about a year. the last place it was had been
breached and very few survived that incident. We were cautious in
building another, but this time we had taken more measures into
making sure it was the safest place for humanity.

Also, it was mandatory that everyone in the Alley knew how to
defend themsleves with at least two different kinds of weapons.
We all knew how to survive at least a week in the wilderness on
our won, and we knew how to make weapons out of simple objects.
Everyone had to carry at least one survival pack complete with
matches, water, and dried fruit and nuts in it, as well as a
weapon of their choice. It was just a precaution in the event of
anything actually happening.

People liked the Alley. The rules were strict, but they made
sense. We felt safe. There wasn't ever much of a worry about
being attacked or starving to death. We had people to take carte
of things like that. An average person didn't have to worry about
those kinds of things, not when everything was run so flawlessly.

But then again, normal people didn't have to worry about the same
kinds of things as I did. They weren't expected to carry on
humanity, or keep a perfect image for the others. They didn't
have to harbour their sexuality, or worry about what would happen
if soemeone found out the truth....

Jackson wasn't ever stupid; he knew that I didn't love him. But
he also knew that I didn't have the heart to tell him no, that I
wasn't going to risk my own life just to be with someone else...
He knew everythign about me that I wished I could hide.

And in the end, it was smartest that I had said yes to him.
Automatically, that had secured me a spot in the Alley, and it
made me not have to worry about the outside world Anyways, if I
had said no, I would have wound up just like her...

Memories flashed before my eyes, Priscilla laughing and dancing,
the feeling of her lips against mine, the smell of her strawberry
shampoo. The three years we had been together.

But none of that really mattered anymore.

Priscilla was dead, gone. She was out in the world, just like the
rest of the infected. If she were to see me, she wouldn't
remember those days.